Candy
by Blu3 Wat3rs
Summary: In Eddie's opinion, the only good thing about Valentine's Day is the candy. But this year the holiday seems to be even more annoying. With her sisters acting lovey-dovey, Eddie is losing her patience. But during a class Valentine's Day party, Eddie receives a sweet surprise that may change her mind about the holiday. (Subtle Jaddie fic.)


**Disclaimer: I do not own the Boy/Girl Battle Series. **

**A/N: Hey guys! I had this oneshot in my files for a really long time and was originally going to post it around Valentine's Day. However, stuff got in the way and I ended up forgetting about it. I found it, edited it, and now I'm posting it as a little "gift". I know I haven't posted anything on my full fics lately, so I figured that I would post this for you guys, while I finish writing and editing Beginning Again. **

**I'll also be posting this oneshot on my Tumblr. The link to my Tumblr is on my profile! **

**Love you guys, and I hope you enjoy! **

Eddie Malloy was never a fan of Valentine's Day. She personally preferred the day after Valentine's Day, when the unbought chocolate and candy went on sale. This didn't surprise many people. It was no secret that Eddie never found interest in many stereotypical girly things, so her disinterest for Valentine's Day wasn't anything shocking.

People assumed that she disliked the holiday because of all "girly" things about the holiday, such as the flowers, the stuffed animals, the pink, and the overall messiness of it all. Some of the girls at school had assumed that she disliked the holiday because she was single, like many other single people do.

Eddie never confirmed or denied the speculations of others. She didn't think it mattered. There was no need to give an explanation to people. And it wasn't like they even bothered to actually ask her why she didn't like the holiday. They just made their own assumptions. If they didn't ask, then they didn't really want to know. So she shrugged it off.

In school, she was always pushed into at least passing out valentines to her classmates during the Valentine's Day class parties. And every year, Eddie simply picked up a box of valentines from the store, sorted through them, signed her name on them, and would slip them into her classmates' valentine boxes and bags. And every year, she would open her own box and she'd eat the candy as she glanced at the cards her classmates gave her. Usually she tossed the cards after a few days along with the wrappers. This was her yearly routine since kindergarten, until sixth grade. The difference that year was that she was in a different town with a different class, and that no one knew that she disliked Valentine's Day or that she only liked the candy. The candy was the only good thing about the holiday.

They had just finished working on math problems in class when their teacher clapped her hands together and said: "Alright class, I have an announcement!"

The class went silent and looked up at her.

"As you know, Valentine's Day is coming up soon," she said.

Eddie internally groaned. Normally she wouldn't care, but she was extra irritated this year. Beth and Caroline were driving her crazy. She wasn't sure what drove Beth into having feelings for Josh Hatford. She wasn't even sure how Beth could even like anyone at all at her age. Eddie knew that crushes could happen at any age, but Eddie was still not sure that Beth really understood what her feelings even meant. Eddie was pretty sure that Beth currently saw herself as Juliet and saw Josh as Romeo. And Caroline's encouragement didn't help. Her sisters were both really smart, but their heads would often get stuck in the clouds. Beth and Caroline needed to learn how to differentiate life from a fantasy novel or movie. And with Beth having a sort of relationship with Josh, she knew Valentine's Day would just bring along more trouble.

Eddie snapped out of her thoughts as her teacher kept on talking.

"I'm going to pass out some boxes for you and I'd like for you to take some time to decorate them. I'll provide paints, paper, and other things for you to use," the teacher said. "Put the boxes on the big table when you're done. Next week will be our Valentine's Day party. Remember to bring something for everyone in class, you'll be required to put in something into everyone's boxes."

Eddie kept her face neutral as a box was given to her. Josh turned towards her and asked if she wanted him to grab anything for her to use. At first, she was confused on why he was even asking her. She could see Jake looking at them from her peripheral vision as she shook her head. Eddie was suspicious, but she realized that Josh was probably trying to be nice to her because of Beth. While Eddie wanted to give Josh a few choice words regarding how she felt about his "relationship" with Beth, she was not in the mood to deal with Jake trying to fight her for doing so.

"Are you sure?" Josh asked. "I don't mind."

Eddie shrugged as he got up.

"Push our desks together, we can all work on one bigger surface," he suggested.

Eddie didn't say anything as he walked over to grab supplies. Jake pushed a desk together with Josh's and he looked at her as she slowly pushed hers against them.

"You're unusually quiet," Jake said.

Eddie gave him a blank stare, almost challenging him to start a fight. She wasn't in the mood to have a fight, but if he tried her then Eddie had no problem with holding back.

He seemed to get the hint and he sat down as Josh returned with an armful of paints, brushes, paper, and glue. Being the art loving boy that he was, Josh eagerly got to work.

Eddie reached over and grabbed white paint and brushed it onto her box. Jake asked Josh to paint a realistic human heart on his. As the boys worked on their boxes to make them as festive, yet not "girly," she slowly painted her name with blue paint and set it to the side to dry.

As Josh worked on his brother's box, Jake noticed Eddie's final product.

"Is that all you're going to do?" Jake asked.

Eddie shrugged. "I don't really care much about Valentine's Day, so there's no point into putting a ton of effort into something that I'll just end up tossing away."

"You don't like Valentine's Day?" Josh questioned.

She shook her head.

"I'm not really surprised," Jake said. "But why don't you like it?"

Eddie paused. No one had ever actually asked her why.

"I think it's pointless," Eddie said. "When it comes to relationships anyway. Personally, I think that if you really care about someone, then you'd show it everyday of the year, not just on one day. Especially if they're your boyfriend or girlfriend. And people freak out too much over the gifts. If someone wants to show that they care about someone with a gift, then it should be appreciated. But a lot of people get upset when they don't get super extravagant gifts. I know not everyone is like that, but I just think there's too much pressure on the holiday."

The two guys stared at her.

"Wait, don't you like Christmas though?" Jake asked. "Isn't that similar?"

"The pressure is still there, sure. But during Christmas, people argue against the pressure. People remind other people that Christmas isn't just about gifts, but also about family and friends, and other stuff depending on what religion you're from," Eddie said. "I don't hate Valentine's Day, I guess I just don't like the way people act. And yeah, the pink and lovey dovey stuff can be too much."

Josh kept painting as he nodded, showing that he was listening. Jake kept looking right at her.

"You really put a lot of thought into this," he said.

Josh slid over the finished box to Jake, who took a pair of scissors and slit a small opening on the top of his box. He did the same to Josh's box and motioned for Eddie to slide hers over. She raised her eyebrow, but did it anyway.

"It's easier to tape it shut and make a slot to slide the stuff in," Jake said as he carved into the box. "That way people don't steal any of the candy while pretending to put in a card. It's happened before."

He turned the box over and showed her. He had made a small slot underneath her name.

"Thanks," she muttered. "The candy is the only good thing about this holiday."

The bell rang and everyone jumped up, putting stuff away frantically.

Eddie pulled her desk back to its original place and started to gather her things. She grabbed her box and set it down at the designated table before walking out of the class, hurrying to get home.

The next few days had been extra annoying for Eddie. Not only was Beth still in a "kind-of-a-relationship" with Josh, but now Caroline was insisting that she was in love too. And with Wally Hatford of all people. Eddie was going crazy. She didn't care if her sisters wanted to act like love stuck zombies with no brains. But the least they could do was have some kind of self control.

Eddie didn't believe that any of this could end well. Why would it? They were in the middle of a huge prank war, with their dignities at stake. If Beth and Caroline were going to do this, then they could at least be less giggly about it. Or at least wait until after Valentine's Day. Or at least wait for them to finish the science project. But while Eddie wanted to prioritize the science project, Josh was on the sidelines holding hands with Beth, and Jake was just being difficult as usual.

The dreaded day of the class party eventually arrived. Eddie had grabbed a box of Valentine's Day themed chocolate bars from the store. She didn't have the patience to sort through a box of cards this year. She quickly wrote "From Eddie" on each one and shoved them into a bag that she used to carry them with her to school. Eddie's patience was thin this year and she just wanted everything to be over. She quickly stuffed the bars into her classmates' boxes and sat down at her desk when she finished.

She mostly kept to herself during the party. As everyone talked, Eddie quietly ate the snacks that had been given out. Despite the fact that every cupcake and cookie was pink or was heart shaped, she wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to enjoy free food.

The teacher clapped her hands again and announced that they were free to look into their boxes. Eddie waited for the sea of people to die down before going up to get hers.

Josh waved at her. "Hey, wanna sit with us?"

Eddie raised her eyebrow at him. "Why?"

"We know you're miserable, so you might as well sit with people who are aware of it," Josh said.

Fair enough.

Eddie pushed her chair towards the desks that Jake and Josh had pushed together. They had already opened their boxes.

"That's a lot of stuff," she said, motioning to Jake's box. It was filled with extra cards and notes from secret admirers.

Jake shrugged and looked away, but she was able to see his reddening face. She smirked, feeling smug to have made him feel embarrassed.

Josh sorted through his own box. "There's a bit of extra stuff. I'm not really sure what to do with it though, since…" he trailed off when he caught Eddie's narrowed eyes. He knew better than to say "I don't need these extra Valentine's when I'm already dating Beth Malloy" out loud, especially with Eddie sitting in front of him.

Josh coughed awkwardly and tried to shift the conversation away from himself. "What about you, Eddie?"

Eddie looked down at her own box and slowly opened it. To her surprise, a large amount of candy fell out as well as a few cards from her classmates.

"Wow! That's a lot of candy," Josh said. "Who are they from?"

She reached down and picked up a red lollipop, inspecting it.

"There's no names on them," she said. "I'm not complaining though."  
Eddie pulled the wrapper off and stuck the lollipop in her mouth. She shoved the rest of the candy back into the box and began to sort through the cards from her classmates.

They were mostly generic things. A lot of the guys had given out sports related or superhero cards. A lot of the girls did too, since they were aware of what her interests were. But there was no way that all of the candy was collectively from her classmates. Eddie was sure that someone shoved a few extra handfuls of candy into her box when no one was looking.

She glanced down at the box and studied it. There was chocolate, lollipops, some gummies, and even a couple of those heart shaped candies with the corny messages on them. Eddie began to think back to when she first decorated the box.

The only ones that knew that she only liked having the candy were Josh and Jake. She had admitted it in front of them, and no one else could have heard her. And while she doubted that they'd do something like this, though it could have been possible. It could have been Josh's attempt to be nice so that she'd be less against his relationship with Beth. But he looked genuinely surprised when the candy all fell out. But that would mean that Jake had done it, and she really didn't think he was the one responsible. It was too...sweet. No pun intended. Eddie was more surprised that he hadn't taken advantage of the situation and poured pink glitter into her box to mess around.

Eddie quickly glanced at him. He was biting into a cookie while squinting at a red card that someone had given him. He hadn't reacted to her discovery, even though Josh did.

She decided not to say anything.

When the bell rang at the end of the day, Eddie turned the box over and dumped everything into her backpack before tossing the box into the big trash can in the hallway. As she walked out, she saw a red faced Wally shove a frilly valentine into Jake's hand before running off as if he were being chased by a serial killer.

Weird.

Eddie's dislike towards Valentine's Day grew even stronger after she walked outside to see the four Hatford boys standing over her little sister's apparently dead body on the back porch of the house. In that moment, she thought about everything that had just happened: the science project, Beth and Josh, Caroline pining over Wally, the Valentine's day candy, and the rejection note that they had read a few hours ago. She thought about all of them as she leaned down to inspect her sister, and when she realized that Caroline was laying in a pool of raspberry syrup, she immediately thought: _"If I have to survive another Valentine's Day, or any other day, like this...I'm going to jump into the river."_

After the whole situation was dealt with, Eddie was sure that her parents would definitely ban them from ever talking to the Hatfords ever again. But then the abaguchie was exposed as a cougar, and her parents and the boys' parents had thought it would be better for them to walk as a group to school. After everything that had happened, Eddie was ready to just let the cougar carry Caroline and Beth away.

The first morning that they met with the Hatfords to walk to school together was awkward at first. As they walked down the street, Eddie hung back behind the group. Jake noticed and slowed down enough to be able to talk to her.

"What's with you?" he asked.

"I was just wondering about something," Eddie said. "I was going to ask you sooner, but everything got messy and I forgot."

"Okay," Jake said. "Ask."

"You and Josh are the only ones in class who knew that the only thing that I like about Valentine's Day is the candy," Eddie said. "I had told you guys when we had finished making the boxes."

"So?" Jake asked. He was avoiding eye contact at this point, staring directly ahead of him as he walked.

"I was wondering if you had told anyone about it," Eddie said.

"Why would I?" Jake asked.

"Well, there's only two explanations for it," Eddie said. "Either it was you, Josh, or both who put the candy in my box; Or one of you told someone else about it."

"Maybe someone overheard," Jake suggested.

"That's a possibility," Eddie said. "I find it hard to believe that you guys would ever do something that nice, especially for me."

He rolled his eyes.

"I wonder why they did it though," Eddie said.

Jake shrugged, but finally faced her.

"Maybe someone else enjoys Valentine's Day candy and they had extra after buying a bunch for themselves." Jake suggested. "Too bad you'll never know."

Eddie raised her eyebrow and Jake smirked at her.

Eddie knew what his response meant. It had definitely been him, but Jake would never admit it out loud. And he knew that Eddie would never tell anyone about it.

She pulled out two lollipops from her pocket and handed one to Jake, who took it wordlessly. Eddie smirked back at him and stuck the lollipop into her mouth. They walked the rest of the way to school in silence, quietly enjoying the candy and secretly enjoying each other's company.

Maybe Valentine's Day isn't so bad afterall.


End file.
